bijou
See also: Bijou
English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /biˈʒuː/
Noun
Etymology 2
Borrowed from Sabir bijou, ultimately from Occitan pichon (“small, little”), influenced by English bijou (“jewel”).[1]
Adjective
bijou (comparative more bijou, superlative most bijou)
- (Polari) small, little (often implying affection)
- 1968, Bona Prods (Round the Horne), written by Kenneth Horne:
- You may have vada'd one of our tiny bijou masterpiecettes, heartface.
- 1997, Lucas, Ian, “The Color of His Eyes: Polari and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”, in Anna Livia;Kira Hall, editors, Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, page 91:
- We, the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence and the Gathered Faithful, do hereby invoke the spirit of our beloved Muffin the Mule, to recognize the bona work of Mr. Derek Jarman in promulgating Universal Joy […] in his bijou masterpiecettes[.]
-
- (of a residence) small and elegant
- 1989 [1971], Willetts, H. T., transl., August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translation of Август 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, →ISBN, page 126:
- In small towns like Soldau a small area accommodates the town hall, the church, several miniature squares, a monument to somebody or other, perhaps more than one, all sorts of shops, beerhouses, a post office, a bank, and there may be a bijou park behind wrought-iron railings, then the streets and the town end just as abruptly, and you have scarcely passed the last house when you find a highroad lined with trees stretching before you with a neat grid of precisely demarcated fields on either side.
-
- intricate; finely made
Usage notes
Often used with -ette on the noun that it describes, as in the quotations given above, and bijou problemette.
References
- Alan D. Corré, "Polari Words from Lingua Franca" in: A Glossary of Lingua Franca. 5th Edition, 2005
Dutch
Alternative forms
- byou (hyperforeignism)
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /biˈʒu/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: bi‧jou
- Rhymes: -u
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bi.ʒu/
audio (file)
Usage notes
Only seven words in French ending in -ou have their plurals in -oux instead of -ous: bijou, caillou, chou, genou, hibou, joujou, pou.
See also
Further reading
- “bijou” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
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